Loft bed frame and elevated laptop stand

Materials: MALM and Magasin

Description: Here are two of my Ikea hacks.

The first is a bed frame I made…

I recently moved from a house into a small apartment, and needed somewhere to store all of my things, but still wanted a clean, clutter-free look. Ikea had the answer. I simply found a chest of drawers that I liked from Ikea, and bought four of them – the MALM 3 drawer chest. I then built a simple bed frame to sit on top, and turned it into bed with 50 cubic feet of storage space underneath (including the drawers)!!

The frame wasn’t hard to build:
I measured a queen sized mattress, and cut large pieces of lumber to fit around that. Those exterior pieces of lumber were reinforced in the corners. Then I got smaller pieces of wood (2×2′s, I think) and attached them so they’d run along each inside edge of those exterior pieces. Then I placed 2×4′s on top of those runners, and they reached from one end of the frame to the other, acting as slats for the platform. Once the slats were in place, I just placed a large piece of chip board on top! I also added a couple other finishing touches, such as adding small pieces of wood to the inside edges of the chest of drawers, where I cut out a notch, which I used to hang a small curtain on a dowel to hide the spaces.

My second hack is a laptop stand…

This hack is extremely easy. I simply started with a Magasin wooden dish drainer from Ikea, and cut off the longer supporting legs on the “back” side. Then I attached it to a wall using Command 3M small wire hooks, and voila!! I used 5 of these strips because I wanted to be sure it would support the weight of my laptop. I really like the look of a floating laptop, and this dish drainer worked perfectly.

I can also remove the laptop stand from the wall completely if I wish, or fold it up completely. Or, I can fold the top portion up and use it to support a text book on the lower portion. Or finally, I place the laptop on the top portion, and either fold up the bottom portion, or use it to store my mouse, wireless keyboard, etc. Very versatile!

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The Author

Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

20 Responses to Loft bed frame and elevated laptop stand

@Mana–Yes, I think the MALM 4-dresser drawers would work very nicely. However, these specific ones are 16 inches longer than the ones I used, so you won’t have the space in between the two dressers. I’m not sure how wide a double bed mattress is, but since it’s smaller than the queen I used, I bet you’d have a very narrow opening at the head and foot of the bed.

In regards to buying a bed frame and setting it on top–that’d be mostly ok. The frame that you buy will be strong enough to support itself, but you’ll need to secure it to the dressers somehow, so it doesn’t slide around.

Hi! I had a question. I want to do this bed idea, but I am pretty short. I was wondering if I could do this with http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30143088 < These drawers and if possible, How many would I need, ect. I want to do this for a double sized bed because my apartment is small. Is there a way to buy a bedframe from Ikea and set it on top? You are brilliant, by the way. ^^

We’re about to do the laptop hack, but I’m concerned the 1/2 lb weight limit on the 3M hooks won’t be sufficient for my laptop and the rack. My MacBook is 4.7 lbs. Distributed, 5 hooks would only hold 2.5 lbs of weight. I’m going to look for a more stable solution for the hooks.

Very nice. I esp. like the second idea, although I see using it for a cookbook stand in the kitchen, maybe cutting off the larger “shelf” side (where the laptop rests in this idea) instead of the legs, so the legs could be used to tilt the stand forward from the wall. Hmmm… may have to look for this thing next time we’re at Ikea.

Thanks for the comments. In regards to what I store in the space between the chest of drawers… I have all my large, obtrusive objects. Golf clubs, luggage, snowboard, boxes of old text books, sports equipment, camping gear, and so on.

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